Cavanaugh Justice--Detecting a Killer Read online

  “Look, I know you have serial killers back in Southern California. They’re not exclusive to New York City,” Doyle said.

  “I know that,” Cassandra answered.

  “Then I don’t get it. Why are you so excited about this case?”

  “First, it answers questions about what happened to our long-lost cousin, and second, there are endless possibilities regarding who the other victims were and why they were killed. Maybe we can find out what it was that they had in common that might have led to their demise.”

  “In other words, we resort to the usual.”

  “The ‘usual’?” Cassandra questioned.

  “Yes. Working hard, putting in long hours and juggling a ton of unanswered questions.”

  Cassandra shook her head. There was a depressing, hopeless note to Doyle’s voice. “Oh, Detective, you have to be more positive than that.”

  “This is me being positive.”

  She stared at him in silence for a moment, and then surprised him as she began to laugh in response to his comment.

  “If you say so,” Cassandra said.

  Dear Reader,

  Here we are again at long last. Since we were last together, I came down with Long COVID—twice. For those of you who are lucky enough not to be acquainted with that version of the disease, at its height, it came very close to wiping out my mind. I have been writing stories since I was eleven years old, but for the first time in more years than I care to admit to, I found myself unable to write an actual sentence. Needless to say, I was panic-stricken. It was several weeks before I was able to concentrate enough in order to write absolutely anything, much less a book.

  But I am back now, complete with a brand-new granddaughter (to go with my adorable two-year-old grandson), and I have returned to finally pick up the thread of another Cavanaugh story, complete with a serial killer. The story is set in New York City, my old stomping grounds. It is discovered that one of the Cavanaughs disappeared here when his divorced mother brought him to New York City from his initial home in Southern California.

  Confused? I promise it’ll all clear up by the time you finish reading the book.

  As always, I thank you for reading one of my books (now more than ever) and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

  With affection,

  Marie Ferrarella

  CAVANAUGH JUSTICE:

  DETECTING A KILLER

  Marie Ferrarella

  USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author Marie Ferrarella has written more than three hundred books for Harlequin, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, marieferrarella.com.

  Books by Marie Ferrarella

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Cavanaugh Justice

  Cavanaugh Vanguard

  Cavanaugh Cowboy

  Cavanaugh’s Missing Person

  Cavanaugh Stakeout

  Cavanaugh in Plain Sight

  Cavanaugh Justice: The Baby Trail

  Cavanaugh Justice: Serial Affair

  Cavanaugh Justice: Deadly Chase

  Cavanaugh Justice: Up Close and Deadly

  Cavanaugh Justice: Detecting a Killer

  The Coltons of New York

  Colton’s Unusual Suspect

  Visit the Author Profile page at

  Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To

  Autumn Marceline Ferrarella

  Welcome to the world, Little One

  Love,

  G-Mama

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Excerpt from Hotshot Hero in Disguise by Lisa Childs

  Prologue

  Andrew Cavanaugh, the former police chief of Aurora, California, was finally about to sit down at the dining room table opposite his wife, Rose. He had just finished preparing a late supper for them, and for once, they were alone. It was a rare occurrence, given the numerous members in their family.

  And just when he was about to pull out his chair, the doorbell rang.

  Rose looked at her husband quizzically. He had already told her that they were going to be alone for a change. “Are you expecting anyone, Andy?”

  It was meant as a tongue-in-cheek question, seeing as how there was hardly ever a time when they—especially Andrew—weren’t expecting someone to drop by. The standing joke was that their home saw so much foot traffic, it could have easily doubled as Grand Central Station.

  “I thought we were supposed to be alone tonight,” Andrew replied. Resigned, the former chief of police made his way toward the front door.

  He moved like a much younger man, Rose caught herself thinking with no small amount of pride and not for the first time. Even after so many years together, she considered herself blessed. They’d been in lockstep from the beginning, finishing each other’s sentences and acting on the same thought. If he went in another room, eventually she’d find him. Always together and happy in the other’s company. Well, except for one long period when she’d lost her way and forgotten how to get home. But Andrew never let go, thank God.

  Leaving her napkin on her plate, she followed directly behind her husband, curious. One of their younger relatives must be paying a surprise visit or, more likely, was in search of a home-cooked meal.

  When she reached him, Andrew had already looked through the peephole and was in the process of unlocking the front door.

  His father, Seamus Cavanaugh, the former chief of the Aurora Police Department and official family patriarch, was standing on the other side of the door. Seamus’s usual deep, warm smile was conspicuously missing. In its place was a look of deep concern.

  “C’mon in, Pop,” Andrew said, closing the front door behind the gray-haired man. When he turned to regard the older man, he felt he had a cause for concern. “I know that look, Pop. What’s up?”

  To his surprise—because his father loved to talk about everything and anything at the drop of a hat—Seamus Cavanaugh did not immediately answer the question.

  “We were just about to sit down to dinner, Pop,” Rose told her father-in-law, gesturing toward the table. “Join us,” she said, inviting him in.

  His father looked like a man who had just been caught in the middle of sleepwalking, Andrew couldn’t help thinking. The man hadn’t brushed his hair and looked as if he’d woken from a nightmare. Something was off and that worried him. Due to his advancing age, Seamus Cavanaugh had lost a little of his vim and vigor, but the light in his eyes had never lessened.

  Until now.

  This wasn’t right.

  At the very least, his father appeared troubled.

  Andrew waited until his father had helped himself to several slices of pot roast and a healthy serving of mashed potatoes before attempting to engage him in conversation.

  Seamus bathed the roast beef and mashed potatoes in gravy while totally ignoring the bowl of mixed vegetables awaiting his attention. Vegetables had never been the older man’s favorite. The man groused often about how “leafy greens” were overhyped.

  Andrew waited patiently until his father was finished putting his dinner together, then asked his question again.

  “Okay, out with it. What has you looking as if you’ve just taken a large bite out of a particularly bitter lemon?” Andrew asked.

  “Andrew, let your father eat,” Rose chided, gesturing at her father-in-law’s plate.

  “I’m not telling him not to eat,” Andrew said. “I’m just urging him to indulge in his second favorite hobby—talking. If he doesn’t do that, he just might wind up hurting himself.” When Rose raised her eyebrows, Andrew elaborated. “Keeping all that in.”

  He half expected his father to snarl at the remark. It was part of their usual give and take.

  But this time, there was no snarling on the older man’s part. There wasn’t so much as a hint as to what had caused him to come over so suddenly.

  The silence hanging between them seemed to go a great deal deeper than any situation warranted. Either his father wanted to concentrate on eating, or something was terribly wrong.

  Andrew shifted in his chair, his carefully prepared dinner completely forgotten. “Okay, Pop, now you’ve really got me concerned. What’s going on?” the former chief of police asked.

  In response, Seamus sighed. Andrew was well acquainted with that sound. He braced himself for a long, involved story, one that would likely rob him of sleep.

  Seamus rested his fork on his plate, then looked from one member of the couple to the other. “Did I ever mention Nathan Cavanaugh to either of you?”
r />   Rose shook her head.

  “Not that I recall,” Andrew told his father. It was not just a throwaway statement. The former chief of police prided himself on his memory. Had his father mentioned the name to him, even once, Andrew was certain that he would have remembered.

  “I didn’t think so,” Seamus murmured, more to himself than to either person sitting at the table with him. “Nathan is the Cavanaugh nephew no one ever talked about. I hear that he was a rebel who always seemed to march to his own drummer.” Seamus smiled sadly. “Making the family proud never seemed to be on his agenda. Instead of getting involved with law enforcement the way the rest of the family eventually did, or any sort of service-related way of life for that matter, Nathan just focused on having a good time.”

  Seamus looked as if every word he uttered pained him. “His father, Ethan, was in law enforcement, but he died in a traffic accident when Nathan was still a kid.

  “As it turned out,” Seamus said, continuing, “Nathan’s mother, Barbara, never seemed to be all that up to the job of single-handedly raising a child. And she deeply resented Ethan’s family—meaning us,” he clarified, looking squarely into Andrew’s eyes, “meddling in her life and her son’s life. So, not long after Ethan was killed, Barbara took off with her son. Nathan was eleven at the time and was already getting into trouble.”

  “You couldn’t find a way to stop her?” Rose asked, surprised. As far as she was concerned, the Cavanaughs had always been a force to be reckoned with. In addition to being a close-knit family, each member kept tabs on the other. If one was in dire straits, the Cavanaughs rallied around until the matter was resolved. Usually, it all ended in a massive family party. But maybe not this time.

  “So, when Barbara and Nathan left, I thought it was better for everyone all around just to step out of the way,” Seamus confessed. “I know that Brian,” he said, mentioning one of Andrew’s brothers and the current chief of detectives, “attempted to keep tabs on Barbara and the boy, but then they moved to New York City. Shortly after that, they proceeded to disappear off the face of the earth. That was approximately fifteen years ago.”

  “Not that I don’t find all this fascinating,” Andrew told his father, “but where is this going, Pop?”

  The expression on Seamus’s face turned grim right before Andrew’s eyes. “Nathan’s remains were just discovered, along with the remains of several other people, in a mass grave unearthed by a construction crew. The company was in the process of clearing a very large site of land. The idea was to build on it. That poor kid,” Seamus lamented. “He never had a chance. We could have done something to stop this.”

  Andrew exchanged looks with his wife. Nothing was ever simple when it came to the family, he couldn’t help thinking. His father’s guilt alone warranted a few extra hours of consoling. But with this discovery about Nathan, Andrew understood that the Cavanaughs had to rally around one of their own, even if only to find out the real story behind his death.

  “This just got a lot more interesting rather quickly,” Andrew commented.

  “Tell me about it,” Seamus said, reaching for the bottle of wine next to him.

  Chapter 1

  “Are you sure the remains belong to a Cavanaugh?” Brian Cavanaugh asked his father the moment he walked in through the front door that evening.

  Andrew had called him with the news. This was the first Brian had heard of Nathan Cavanaugh, resurfacing after all this time, but the chief of detectives supposed that anything was possible.

  Andrew had called in both of his younger brothers to the house. Since their brother rarely invited anyone over without mentioning the words “impromptu party,” Brian and Sean knew this had to be something serious.

  They had lost no time in arrived at the former chief of police’s house. Living close to one another, Brian and Sean arrived quickly, practically within two minutes of one another.

  Seamus frowned at his sons. “Do the letters D-N-A mean anything to any of you boys?” he asked after giving each of his sons, including Andrew, a steely look that felt as if it had gone clear down to the bone. “With our collective experience in law enforcement, you’d think some of the brains would have rubbed off on you three.”

  Andrew sighed, digging deep for his patience. “Yes, Pop, we’re all aware of DNA and the advancements made in the field of forensics since you were in your heyday.”

  Seamus shot his oldest a warning look. “Watch your tongue, boy.”

  “That goes both ways, Pop,” Andrew said patiently.

  “Okay, boys, back to your corners, or I’m sending all of you to bed without any dessert,” Rose warned the men who were sitting around her table.

  Seamus pretended to huff as he gave his oldest son a glare. “She’s certainly become cheekier since she got back.”

  “She certainly has,” Andrew confirmed with a laugh, giving Rose a one-arm hug.

  Everyone at the table knew that the elder Cavanaugh was referring to the period of time that happened years ago. Andrew’s wife had left the house to clear her head after they had had a rare argument, and due to a sudden, unexpected rainstorm, she had wound up driving her car into the river.

  Swept away, she came very close to drowning. The whole incident had given her amnesia. Because of that, she went missing for a number of years until fortuitous events had her crossing paths with her youngest child, Rayn, in the upstate diner where she had wound up working. Rayn immediately told her father, and Andrew quickly drove up to see for himself if this was the woman he had never given up hope of finding. It was.

  Elated, he proceeded to work with Rose, and eventually, her memory did return.

  “Never mind me,” Rose instructed, knowing full well how very lucky she wound up being. “Just how sure are you that these bones that were uncovered actually belonged a Cavanaugh?”

  “Very sure,” Seamus assured his daughter-in-law. “The ME working the case is the grandson of an old friend of mine—and he has excellent credentials.”

  Andrew laughed softly under his breath. “‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he walked into mine...’” the former chief of police murmured, allowing his voice to trail off.

  “First of all, it’s ‘she,’ not ‘he.’ And that’s ‘walks,’ not walked,” Brian told his older brother. “‘She walks into mine,” he quoted the movie line.

  Andrew shot Brian an impatient look.

  “Well, if you’re going to quote it, quote it right,” the chief of detectives told his older brother. “As for the sentiment, that still holds,” Brian said. “Even across the country, there’s no escaping the Cavanaugh penchant for getting involved in things.”

  It was Sean’s turn to laugh. “That goes along with the fact that no matter which way you slice it, there are a lot of us.”

  “Apparently,” Brian willingly agreed. “So, what’s next? You want some of us to go and check out the validity of this story?” he asked. “That these bones actually belong to a distant member of the family?”

  “My friend’s granddaughter is no dummy,” Seamus stated. He sensed that his sons were skeptical, but that didn’t mean disrespecting the professionals. Just because it wasn’t reviewed by a Cavanaugh didn’t mean it wasn’t legit. These remains were their blood.

  “No one said she was incompetent, Dad. This is one of those ‘trust but verify’ cases,” Sean told the others. “So, when do we go and collect these ‘bones’ and bring them back to bury in the family plot, where they belong?”

  “I’m thinking that it’s too soon for that,” Andrew said to the others. “I’d hazard a guess that they’re still trying to put the pieces together so they can figure out who killed these people and why.”

  “It’s not just Nathan,” Seamus told the gathering. “My guess is that they’re trying to figure out who killed and dismembered the other people who were buried in that mass grave as well.” His sons turned to look at him, which encouraged Seamus to continue. “I know I’m just an old man to you boys,” he began, only to have Brian interrupt him.

  “No one was saying that, Dad,” Brian said.

  “You didn’t have to, boy,” Seamus snapped. “It’s written all over your faces.” When Andrew began to protest, Seamus held up his hand to silence his oldest, not wanting to get embroiled in a pointless argument. “But if you ask me, I would say that the collections of bones points to the fact that this could very well be the work of a serial killer. A very specific kind of serial killer.”